Cornerstone OnDemand vs. Paylocity

Overview
ProductRatingMost Used ByProduct SummaryStarting Price
Cornerstone OnDemand
Score 8.2 out of 10
N/A
Cornerstone OnDemand is a cloud-based application for talent management. Cornerstone offers suites for recruiting, training, performance monitoring and planning, learning, and HR data management. It is scaled for enterprises.N/A
Paylocity
Score 7.8 out of 10
N/A
Paylocity provides 24/7 access to your online payroll and human resource data management. Paylocity offers highly customizable payroll functionality, as well as HR, benefits administration, and time and talent management programs.N/A
Pricing
Cornerstone OnDemandPaylocity
Editions & Modules
No answers on this topic
No answers on this topic
Offerings
Pricing Offerings
Cornerstone OnDemandPaylocity
Free Trial
NoNo
Free/Freemium Version
NoNo
Premium Consulting/Integration Services
YesNo
Entry-level Setup FeeRequiredNo setup fee
Additional Details
More Pricing Information
Community Pulse
Cornerstone OnDemandPaylocity
Top Pros
Top Cons
Features
Cornerstone OnDemandPaylocity
Onboarding
Comparison of Onboarding features of Product A and Product B
Cornerstone OnDemand
8.2
132 Ratings
11% above category average
Paylocity
8.2
721 Ratings
2% above category average
New hire portal8.369 Ratings8.3717 Ratings
Manager tracking tools8.0114 Ratings8.0559 Ratings
Compliance tracking and reporting8.4125 Ratings00 Ratings
Performance and Goals
Comparison of Performance and Goals features of Product A and Product B
Cornerstone OnDemand
8.3
114 Ratings
13% above category average
Paylocity
7.4
374 Ratings
10% below category average
Corporate goal setting8.095 Ratings7.4283 Ratings
Subordinate goal setting8.398 Ratings00 Ratings
Individual goal setting8.8106 Ratings7.4345 Ratings
Line-of sight-visibility8.194 Ratings7.3244 Ratings
Performance tracking8.1109 Ratings7.4348 Ratings
Performance Management
Comparison of Performance Management features of Product A and Product B
Cornerstone OnDemand
7.8
119 Ratings
13% above category average
Paylocity
7.4
480 Ratings
7% below category average
Performance plans8.193 Ratings7.2429 Ratings
Plan weighting7.480 Ratings00 Ratings
Manager note taking7.969 Ratings00 Ratings
Performance improvement plans7.781 Ratings7.2355 Ratings
Review status tracking8.396 Ratings7.4441 Ratings
Rater nomination workflow7.664 Ratings00 Ratings
Review reminders8.293 Ratings7.5443 Ratings
Workflow restrictions7.485 Ratings00 Ratings
Multiple review frequency7.082 Ratings7.6362 Ratings
Reporting8.1113 Ratings00 Ratings
Succession Planning
Comparison of Succession Planning features of Product A and Product B
Cornerstone OnDemand
9.1
58 Ratings
24% above category average
Paylocity
7.1
220 Ratings
10% below category average
Create succession plans/pools8.449 Ratings6.7147 Ratings
Candidate ranking9.349 Ratings7.1180 Ratings
Candidate search9.352 Ratings7.4200 Ratings
Candidate development9.249 Ratings7.4161 Ratings
Recruiting / ATS
Comparison of Recruiting / ATS features of Product A and Product B
Cornerstone OnDemand
8.6
66 Ratings
16% above category average
Paylocity
7.7
453 Ratings
1% below category average
Job Requisition Management8.745 Ratings7.8372 Ratings
Company Website Posting8.841 Ratings8.1396 Ratings
Publish to Social Media8.738 Ratings7.7304 Ratings
Job Search Site Posting8.638 Ratings7.7371 Ratings
Customized Application Form8.740 Ratings00 Ratings
Resume Management8.743 Ratings00 Ratings
Duplicate Candidate Prevention8.840 Ratings7.0310 Ratings
Candidate Search8.641 Ratings00 Ratings
Applicant Tracking8.841 Ratings8.0416 Ratings
Collaboration8.836 Ratings00 Ratings
Task Creation and Delegation8.638 Ratings00 Ratings
Email Templates8.359 Ratings00 Ratings
User Permissions8.360 Ratings00 Ratings
Notifications and Alerts8.355 Ratings7.9414 Ratings
Reporting8.363 Ratings00 Ratings
Learning Management
Comparison of Learning Management features of Product A and Product B
Cornerstone OnDemand
7.5
187 Ratings
6% above category average
Paylocity
-
Ratings
Course authoring5.6138 Ratings00 Ratings
Course catalog or library8.4185 Ratings00 Ratings
Player/Portal7.8172 Ratings00 Ratings
Learning content8.2147 Ratings00 Ratings
Mobile friendly7.9135 Ratings00 Ratings
Progress tracking & certifications7.4168 Ratings00 Ratings
Assignments7.8181 Ratings00 Ratings
Compliance management7.6162 Ratings00 Ratings
Learning administration7.6184 Ratings00 Ratings
Learning reporting & analytics7.7183 Ratings00 Ratings
Social learning6.9116 Ratings00 Ratings
Human Resource Management
Comparison of Human Resource Management features of Product A and Product B
Cornerstone OnDemand
-
Ratings
Paylocity
7.8
847 Ratings
0% below category average
Employee demographic data00 Ratings8.5798 Ratings
Employment history00 Ratings8.2779 Ratings
Job profiles and administration00 Ratings7.8716 Ratings
Workflow for transfers, promotions, pay raises, etc.00 Ratings7.6727 Ratings
Organizational charting00 Ratings7.1668 Ratings
Organization and location management00 Ratings7.8650 Ratings
Compliance data (COBRA, OSHA, etc.)00 Ratings7.5556 Ratings
Payroll Management
Comparison of Payroll Management features of Product A and Product B
Cornerstone OnDemand
-
Ratings
Paylocity
8.1
835 Ratings
1% above category average
Pay calculation00 Ratings8.6811 Ratings
Support for external payroll vendors00 Ratings7.3381 Ratings
Off-cycle/On-Demand payment00 Ratings8.5581 Ratings
Benefit plan administration00 Ratings7.2554 Ratings
Direct deposit files00 Ratings8.9810 Ratings
Salary revision and increment management00 Ratings8.2641 Ratings
Reimbursement management00 Ratings7.9395 Ratings
Leave and Attendance Management
Comparison of Leave and Attendance Management features of Product A and Product B
Cornerstone OnDemand
-
Ratings
Paylocity
7.6
698 Ratings
6% below category average
Approval workflow00 Ratings7.9619 Ratings
Balance details00 Ratings7.4668 Ratings
Annual carry-forward and encashment00 Ratings7.4518 Ratings
Employee Self Service
Comparison of Employee Self Service features of Product A and Product B
Cornerstone OnDemand
-
Ratings
Paylocity
8.3
847 Ratings
2% above category average
View and generate pay and benefit information00 Ratings8.5824 Ratings
Update personal information00 Ratings8.6838 Ratings
View company policy documentation00 Ratings8.0665 Ratings
Employee recognition00 Ratings8.3581 Ratings
View job history00 Ratings8.3703 Ratings
Asset Management
Comparison of Asset Management features of Product A and Product B
Cornerstone OnDemand
-
Ratings
Paylocity
7.5
238 Ratings
3% below category average
Tracking of all physical assets00 Ratings7.5238 Ratings
HR Reporting
Comparison of HR Reporting features of Product A and Product B
Cornerstone OnDemand
-
Ratings
Paylocity
7.0
773 Ratings
8% below category average
Report builder00 Ratings7.0739 Ratings
Pre-built reports00 Ratings7.4753 Ratings
Ability to combine HR data with external data00 Ratings6.5449 Ratings
Best Alternatives
Cornerstone OnDemandPaylocity
Small Businesses
Paycor
Paycor
Score 7.3 out of 10
Patriot Software
Patriot Software
Score 9.0 out of 10
Medium-sized Companies
Darwinbox
Darwinbox
Score 7.9 out of 10
Paypro Workforce Management
Paypro Workforce Management
Score 9.5 out of 10
Enterprises
Oracle Fusion Cloud HCM
Oracle Fusion Cloud HCM
Score 7.5 out of 10
Infor Human Resources
Infor Human Resources
Score 7.3 out of 10
All AlternativesView all alternativesView all alternatives
User Ratings
Cornerstone OnDemandPaylocity
Likelihood to Recommend
8.2
(257 ratings)
7.7
(882 ratings)
Likelihood to Renew
9.9
(37 ratings)
8.9
(82 ratings)
Usability
8.1
(37 ratings)
8.5
(58 ratings)
Availability
9.0
(5 ratings)
8.8
(9 ratings)
Performance
9.0
(5 ratings)
9.4
(9 ratings)
Support Rating
6.6
(36 ratings)
7.2
(79 ratings)
In-Person Training
8.6
(4 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Online Training
8.0
(10 ratings)
8.3
(10 ratings)
Implementation Rating
8.0
(10 ratings)
8.2
(33 ratings)
Configurability
7.3
(115 ratings)
8.3
(7 ratings)
Contract Terms and Pricing Model
8.0
(1 ratings)
8.1
(4 ratings)
Ease of integration
8.5
(3 ratings)
6.6
(7 ratings)
Product Scalability
9.5
(4 ratings)
8.8
(8 ratings)
Professional Services
9.0
(1 ratings)
9.1
(4 ratings)
Vendor post-sale
7.0
(3 ratings)
7.3
(7 ratings)
Vendor pre-sale
8.9
(3 ratings)
9.0
(6 ratings)
User Testimonials
Cornerstone OnDemandPaylocity
Likelihood to Recommend
Cornerstone OnDemand
I feel Cornerstone OnDemand is a great solution for companies that have a large amount of compliance training that needs to be assigned and closely tracked. The features of dynamic groups (based on specific user criteria) allows you to target very specific audiences. The assignment functionality gives you great flexibility on when the assignment runs and how often, and also provides many options for due dates (static date or dynamic date - x days from hire date, date assigned, etc.). This has allowed us to have a clear and consistent user experience for both our newly hired employees and our seasoned employees.
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Paylocity
Paylocity works well for our organization. Ease of use for our managers and employees is very important. Makes it easier for us in HR to manage. Time and attendance works very well. Efficient and effective. Payroll runs very smoothly. We appreciate the performance and compensation module for tracking employees performance, journals and getting feedback and annual compensation.
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Pros
Cornerstone OnDemand
  • Automatic recurring assignments are easy to get that refresher training out without needing to assign it fresh each time.
  • Reporting 2.0 makes it easy to write and share your reports with just selected filters. Making it easy for people receiving it to just change what they need to see.
  • Learning Admin Console makes it easy to peek at what is going on in your portal and open up connected reporting when needed.
  • Success Center is a great resource for getting peer answers to questions and learning about the releases and suggesting changes that should be added to the roadmap.
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Paylocity
  • Customer Service is always helpful with little wait time.
  • Always improving; for example, the recent change to processing payroll. So much easier.
  • Onboarding makes it simple and the fact that the company can personalize the messaging to new hires allows us to make it more personalized.
  • Having an assigned account manager regardless of company size is definitely a plus.
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Cons
Cornerstone OnDemand
  • Sometimes finding the right answer to your support question can be a bit more difficult than it should be.
  • I would like to see more OSHA related courses.
  • At times, the administrative interface seems to need to be updated, but the tradeoff honestly might be the absolute rock-solid stability of the platform.
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Paylocity
  • Recruiting piece/ATS could be improved.
  • A candidate being able to save progress on their application is really a must as they can't leave and come back to their application without having to restart, i.e. if they need to get a phone number for a reference for example.
  • Could use more room in entering the job for internal notes.
  • Quirky when doing cut and paste of job details that leaves spaces that aren't in the document being pasted.
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Likelihood to Renew
Cornerstone OnDemand
As long as pricing stays reasonable, we will likely stay with Cornerstone for at least one more contract renewal. It would be a large task to migrate all of our content to a new system. However, the LMS landscape is diversifying with new startups that are showing some real innovation.
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Paylocity
We have had many issues with the way our platform was set up at implementation that still continue to plague us. In addition, our benefits, in particular our FSA, have been mis-managed causing a balance due from an employee (and also a lot of work for our accounting and HR team, as well as stress for the employee). Our service rep continues to answer incorrectly on many fronts (original response is usually check out this paylocity article, vs. helping) and recently our COBRA management was mishandled (not adding Dental to a person on Cobra who had requested it). So- all in all...we are not particularly happy w/ Paylocity
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Usability
Cornerstone OnDemand
Easy to use, easy to learn, lots of support during the learning process. There are a few parts of the system we don't use and I'm hesitant to begin using because other clients have said they're difficult and cumbersome (certifications) or outdated (libraries)
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Paylocity
Overall, in my experience, Paylocity has been easy to use for both staff and administrators. First, the staff has an application and inputting Paid Time Off is easy to do. I then get an alert on my app and I am able to approve it on the spot from my app that gives me access as an employee and an administrator without having to use multiple apps or logins. As an administrator I think the portal is easy to use, Paylocity did a great job showing me tools and rolling out training classes before rollout.
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Reliability and Availability
Cornerstone OnDemand
I haven't really had any major availability problems. The service is practically impeccable but it is true that at times, due to server and latency problems, the application has been slower. But these have been specific issues that have resolved themselves.
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Paylocity
Paylocity support is always available and I never have to wait endlessly on hold. If our dedicated account manage is not available, there is an entire team assigned to our account. Every one of them is knowledgeable about our organization and Paylocity's process.
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Performance
Cornerstone OnDemand
Pages do not load quickly. Often times any action or selection of a box, drop down, check, pretty much ANY Javascript interaction causes the whole entire page to load/reload/start doing something in the background. This makes a nightmare for having to mass edit courses or upload ILT sessions. It's the one of the archaic web designs they use that really bugs me as an admin and makes working in the portal at times intolerable and insufferable
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Paylocity
pages load in an acceptable amount of time, reports come back quickly, but integration is very complicated and hasn't been possible
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Support Rating
Cornerstone OnDemand
Its always important to have support when you are facing problems and when you are the main admin of the organization. Cornerstone Support is very supporting when you have not found the answer in the help guide. its very useful to have a team support to guide you.
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Paylocity
Everyone wants immediate assistance. Awaiting a response from an email only to ask 2-3 more questions is time consuming. Within the first six months of setup, I would rather respond back to the instructors who provided me the training in each category of my contract.
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In-Person Training
Cornerstone OnDemand
we use also to admin all our training in person events and sessions. Its easy to admin this kind of trainings and automatize some processes we have. Also de user experience and the integration with other systems helps to the employees to use more. All modules integrated oriented to develop people is the principal reason to have CSOD. The training administration is very complete and allows to automate many processes.
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Paylocity
No answers on this topic
Online Training
Cornerstone OnDemand
The online modules are pretty good. You can access them at any time, which we have done. You learn a lot in the beginning, but having the ability to retake short lessons when you are working on those items was very helpful.
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Paylocity
The training was live online, but was with a group of other companies. We did not receive any personalized training with our team. Whenever we would ask for training, we would be sent a peak article link or a video. It felt like the reps we dealt with didn't know the answer to the questions.
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Implementation Rating
Cornerstone OnDemand
The implementation was pretty difficult. We felt they (Cornerstone) didn’t properly allocate the resources to complete our implementation in the timetable we wanted.

For example, we worked on Workday and SSO integrations - work that we had specifically contracted for in advance. When we were ready to work on that project, they didn’t have the people ready to help us, so it took a lot longer than necessary. That was my biggest pain point.

The implementation approach we went with was a self-led implementation. We would speak to the implementation manager once per week, and self-trained. We met with implementation manager to discuss issues, review things that we’d learned for 1 hour. We found that wasn’t enough. Other things would come up outside that one hour window that we couldn’t get answers to. We didn’t have anyone to ask about those things and we had to wait to ask during our weekly meeting.

The advantage of the self-led implementation approach was that it was really inexpensive – significantly less than the implementation cost for the other systems that we looked at. I also liked that we could pace ourselves. There were however big roadblocks. We would have to make sure the right resources were available. We had an implementation/project manager with a lot of experience and felt that the person was knowledgeable but missed on a few things.

In hindsight, I would still go with the self-led implementation, but knowing what I know now, I would ask for the integration person to be available more. I would work that into the contract. With single sign-on, we needed deep linking to build direct links through a Single Sign-On tool, e.g. when someone gets an email, it directs them to training. But it has to go through SSO to get them to the correct link. Deep linking wasn’t turned on in our system and they had to activate it. We encountered little things like that – sequencing pre-requisites which were problematic. We tried to troubleshoot ourselves.

I recommend you consider contracting for some extra implementation hours and determine when they are going to be available. Work it into the contract that you have the ability to call tech support during implementation. In addition to weekly implementation meetings, they have technical webexes – 4 every week, but 2 didn’t apply to us – one as we were using SSO. The challenge is they were not always relevant – we had specific questions that didn’t fall into those categories
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Paylocity
I had gone through an implementation process of another HR platform (Paycom) in my previous job and was traumatized, it was painful. I was surprised how easy and fast it was with Paylocity, the team was very helpful and set us up for success
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Alternatives Considered
Cornerstone OnDemand
The user experience is a lot better than using SumTotal as an admin CSOD makes working easy. Without having workarounds. Reporting is a lot better than both platforms. Reporting in CSOD is complex however easy to manage and create when you understand the data points collected
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Paylocity
We honestly had a program that only kept track of our Demographics, salaries, etc. then all of our Payroll was done on paper with paper leave slips etc. When I saw Paylocity, I was very excited about how easy it is/would be to use. [...] Our Paylocity rep that I spoke to was super GREAT in the explanation of Paylocity and I didn't even shop around much.
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Contract Terms and Pricing Model
Cornerstone OnDemand
It is important to be familiar with the terms and annual increases in licenses and other aspects of the contract. I recommend analyzing this from the beginning and the permanence is relevant because Cornerstone updates its modules and brings out new features that may allow you to leave a module to acquire another
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Paylocity
I wasn't involved in the sales process. I joined the organization after Paylocity was implemented.
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Scalability
Cornerstone OnDemand
It's a great product with some pieces that are set but many things that can be customized as needed for individual needs
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Paylocity
You have an account manager assigned to you on a daily basis but that person is barely available to you
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Professional Services
Cornerstone OnDemand
As I have said before, I have no doubt that the services of the Cornerstone sales people were very good. In particular, our salesperson spent a lot of time in contact with us to make the process go smoothly. Perhaps being a large company in some cases the times were slowed down but it is something normal to take into account.
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Paylocity
Support is quick and proffessional
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Return on Investment
Cornerstone OnDemand
  • We are in the process of trying to increase employee engagement through content expansion. We are in the early stages of this.
  • The Edge Import Tool, in conjunction with Reporting 2.0, has done a great job of helping to automate/semi-automate tasks for huge time savings.
  • Maintaining compliance. Achieved through dynamic/automated groups, assignments, communication, and reporting.
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Paylocity
  • Definitely more consistent processes. Everything is very user friendly and it reduces the amount of time it has taken us in the past before we started using Paylocity. Everything flows super smoothly.
  • We have an improved retention since we have used Paylocity. Before hand, many employees thought it was difficult to find anything like tax forms, pay stubs, benefit elections, etc. when we used other platforms before we implemented our data into Paylocity.
  • Costs have been reduced and the decision-making process has improved and got quicker. Before Paylocity, it would take at least a week to get a salary increase approved, or a job title change approved. Now, it take less than a day and is super easy.
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ScreenShots

Cornerstone OnDemand Screenshots

Screenshot of A personalized, modern user experience and self-service capabilities to engage employees, ensure productivity, and centralize employee dataScreenshot of With Cornerstone Learning, go beyond compliance and training - truly develop an engaged and collaborative workforce.Screenshot of Cornerstone Recruiting takes care of all talent acquisition needs and provides candidates with an amazing experience.Screenshot of With Cornerstone Performance, benchmark your people's performance, align them with your strategy, and provide feedback that matters.Screenshot of Cornerstone HR offers a personalized, modern user experience and self-service capabilities to engage employees, ensure productivity, and centralize employee data.Screenshot of With Content Anytime, quickly deliver hundreds of eLearning courses covering key soft-skills such as communication, time management, leadership, teamwork, and emotional intelligence.